The Villain Is Destined to Die: But as the Creator, I know All Endings

Chapter 312: Jealousy? Never Heard of that

Alice reached both her hands toward the wooden case.

Her fingers hovered above the two clasps at the top for a small moment.

Then she looked up at Leon, and her tired eyes lit up like a child about to reveal her most precious treasure.

Leon was getting annoyed by the anticipation.

Seriously if Alice were to pull one more grin, then will finally lose it.

Alice had said she had made some changes, and that ’his’ design had some flaws.

He genuinely wanted to see what exactly this genius girl had done to improve his already perfected blueprint and theory.

Click.

Click.

Both clasps opened at the same time.

Alice slowly lifted the lid.

Before Leon left for Evana, he had already been preparing for a way to stabilise his new Mark of the Astral Spectrum through a mechanism he had designed all by himself.

He had used both the knowledge of his old modern world, and this new fantasy world he now lived in, to draft the blueprint of a weapon consisting of hundreds of tiny hinges, gear systems, and magical formulas.

The reason behind it was simple.

The Mark of the Astral Spectrum.

While it gave him access to the higher form of mana called Astral Matter, it also came with one deadly problem.

His mana core was only built to channel mortal mana.

If Leon were to draw in Astral Matter recklessly, the immense load would overload his own core, making it shatter and finally, his chest would tear apart from the inside.

It was a death sentence dressed up as a greater form of power.

To solve this fatal flaw, Leon had thought of a solution, inactuality he had used the same technique which Evana used.

Instead of channeling Astral Matter through his own body, he would use a third party.

There were several technologies used in Evana Kingdom such as Irene’s flying car which runs on Astral Matter.

Leon used the same method, but added a touch of neuroscience from his old world.

A weapon inscribed with complex magical formulas that would be directly connected to his nervous system, allowing it to act as an extension of his own body.

The empty compartment at the center of the weapon was designed to hold an artificial mana core, which Leon had not yet given Alice the design for.

That artificial core would channel and stabilise the Astral Matter flow for Leon.

This way, he would trick the Mark of the Astral Spectrum itself.

The Mark would think that the weapon was Leon’s own body. It would allow him to use Astral Matter safely without shattering his real core in the heavy process. And with time, his real body would also slowly adapt to the Astral Matter as well.

That was the plan and that was the point of this weapon.

Leon’s eyes slowly fell onto the interior of the case, as the golden afternoon light spilled into the window.

A weapon rested inside on a soft dark velvet cushioned interior.

A long sleek, single-edged blade. Its color was a deep midnight blue.

The overall design has the same shape Leon had drawn in his blueprint. It was a design he had chosen from a distant memory of a cyberpunk game he used to play in his old world.

Along the length of the blade several black grooves ran in careful geometric pattern.

At the handle, there was a wide open gap for gripping, allowing his fingers to lock in comfortably around it.

And near the base of the blade Leon spotted tiny mechanical hinges nested inside the metal itself.

He immediately recognised them.

These were the exact hinges from his blueprint which meant Alice had actually built the dual-form mechanism.

The weapon could transform from a blade into a hand gun in less than a second.

Just as he had originally designed it, but then his eyes moved further up.

To the upper portion of the handle, right above where his fingers would rest there was an empty space carefully carved into the metal.

The exact size and shape for his artificial mana core he had been planning.

"Woowah..."

Leon exclaimed under his breath without even thinking.

It was an engineering marvel.

And this was made by the girl who had barely even slept. Who had been continuously struggling between three of her research deadlines.

How the heck did she do it?

Even Leon would have given up if he had that much workload stockpiled over his head.

Not like he was jealous of anything—

’Fuck. I am so jealous.’

Maybe he was....

Leon leaned in to take a closer look at the weapon.

Then he turned toward Alice.

"So... what do you think?"

She asked, beaming with pride even while dark circles hung heavily under her eyes.

The prototype was good and all, but...

"I am not exactly seeing what changes you made from my design. It looks like the same design to me."

"Hehe.... Because it was not in your design. It was in the things you used to craft the design itself."

"What do you mean?"

Alice coughed once and answered him with a proud smile.

"At first I thought too that this was flawless. Then again, I kind of started thinking what use this would have for you. Eventually my doubts settled on this tiny empty space you left inside the weapon design."

She pointed at the empty compartment of the blade.

"I thought a highly dense form of some kind of energy source would be placed here to power it up. Knowing you... it might be something around a White Core level or above if you were to use it here. So for that the metal you used in the design would eventually collapse under the stress."

Leon shook his head.

"Hah! Not possible, the metal I used was Argentmoril Steel. It is known for shock absorbency. So if the energy passes through it, then—"

He paused with his mouth hung open as he realised.

’Shit...’

’Argentmoril Steel absorbs shock. And if it absorbs the shock then it will deliver the Astral Matter recoil back to the artificial mana core. Making it explode from the inside...’

Leon’s face went slightly pale as the realization hit him.

What was Leon even thinking when he drew the blueprint?

Alice continued, oblivious to his internal panic.

"That is why I added a new metal to replace the old one."

She smiled proudly as she said it.

"Well. Not really a new metal, but it is a metal which I kind of formed by mixing a few existing elements together to suit this weapon body specifically. It will not shock the energy but instead direct it to a separate secondary location that carries the energy as a stored battery. So if your main energy runs out during a fight those batteries will be automatically utilized as an emergency backup source."

Leon just stared at her.

Then Alice reached across her desk and pulled out a new folded sheet of paper.

She handed it to him.

The sheet was covered in dozens of dense formulas written along the sides. Alongside them was the entire crafting process, the temperature ratios, the element mixing method and the magical binding rules written with a clean diagram.

"Holy shit..."

Leon’s eyes went wide as he read the paper slowly.

Because what Alice had made was not just a "modified metal."

It was something genuinely revolutionary.

Leon recalled the atomic number of it as he scanned her formula.

[Atomic Number: 118]

His hand slightly trembled.

Alice had accidentally recreated a stable version of Oganessonite.

A synthetic element that in his old world had only existed for a few milliseconds at a time inside experimental labs before decaying instantly.

But here she had made it stable with magical formulas.

She had turned an unstable radioactive element into a functional weapon-grade metal that could store, redirect, and channel Astral Matter safely.

Alice, the sleep-deprived overworked scholar.

Had accidentally made a discovery that would change the entire field of alchemy and metallurgy in this world for generations to come.

"This is insane..."

Leon thought silently.

He looked up at her slowly.

Alice was smiling at him, both hands on her hips, and her dark-circled eyes practically glowing with pride.

"So? Am I a genius or what?"

"...."